Drew woke up around midnight last night, screaming and sobbing. I ran to his room and asked him what was wrong (that actually does work sometimes) but he went into I’ll-throw-my-body-in-the-floor-and-wail-until-you-figure-it-out mode. OVERWHELMING.
I tried giving him something to drink, rubbing his back, checking his diaper, re-tucking the blankets, asking if his tummy had an owie, or if there were any OTHER owie’s I needed to look at. He just kept screaming and hitting his head on his pillow. I finally gave him some medicine for his tummy in case he had a tummy ache.
Then I took him over to the rocking chair and wrapped a blanket around him and started singing while I rocked. He fought me as hard as he could, wriggling and trying to get down, all the while – screaming. After TEN LONG MINUTES in which it felt like days passed, he just suddenly slumped into my arms and laid his head down and started snoring slightly.
I tiptoed back to his bed and laid him down. But his blanket was stuck underneath him a little so I eased it out very carefully, trying not to wake him, when he suddenly said, “Hi. Blanket? Night night.”
Oops. I thought he was sleeping. I kissed him and tucked him back in and crawled into bed again.
And then I woke up at one with a very sick Daniel. I’ve never seen him so sick in all of our marriage. I felt so sorry for him. I brought him warm washcloths and offered to run to Wal-Mart (open 24 hours) and buy some medicine to settle his stomach because we are out of it.
He said he actually felt better after getting sick (isn’t that the way it always works? heh.) so we went downstairs and sat in the living room in the dark and talked about whether I should sleep on the couch as to avoid any more germs by sleeping in the same bed with him.
I decided not to because our couch is horribly uncomfortable (the one in the living room, NOT the one in Drew’s room – it’s the wiggliest couch in the world) and because I figured that I hadn’t avoided any germs already. I did spray Lysol on the bed, and then Febreeze, because I can’t stand the smell of Lysol and it was like HEAVEN to have the smell of Febreeze all around me while trying to drift back off to sleep.
I finally fell asleep.
And Oh, Wow. The dream I had was so freaky that when I woke up, I immediately ran downstairs and checked to see if my laptop had charged enough for me to write it down before forgetting it. Elsa, my laptop, was completely charged. Yay.
So, here’s my story.
~
The people I graduated from college with gathered a particular conference together one weekend. It was a conference with some sort of ceremony as well.
Daniel, Drew, and I found a place to stay at this rather eclectic Inn ran by an older Asian couple. We paid for a beautiful room (the most expensive one). We walked in and were so impressed and in awe. Only when we started to look closer did we realize something wasn’t right. The salt and pepper shakers in the kitchen were turned over and the lids were off. Salt and pepper were glumped into piles all over the table. And when I walked by the bathroom, there was a bowl of orange water sitting in the floor. And fingerprints all over the mirrors throughout the room.
I walked back over to Daniel, who was unpacking, and said, “I think we may be in a room that wasn’t cleaned. Which is awful. Don’t unpack yet – I need to go speak with the owners and have us moved to another room.”
At that moment, a man opened a door (that we didn’t know was a door) and ran into our room and stopped and stared at us.
“Oh! This must be your room. We were just put in here, I’m so sorry.”
“No, this isn’t my room. I just wanted to come in and talk to you.”
I completely flipped out then. Not only were we in a dirty room at this Very Odd Inn but it was possible for random people to just walk into our room if they wanted to?
I started screaming at the top of my lungs and had a meltdown. The owners rushed into the room (again, no knocking or anything) and asked what was wrong.
I just pointed at the strange man and said “HE GOT IN HERE. OUR ROOM IS DIRTY. AUGH.” The owners just smiled and assured us that the man was the wife’s brother and that our room was clean and that the fingerprints, salt & pepper, and orange water came with every room.
The strange man rushed over to Daniel and said, “the only reason I came in here is because I wanted to tell you that you and your family HAVE to attend the conference and ceremony tonight.”
Daniel told him that we were already planning on going and satisfied, the man ran back out.
Then we saw the older couple (the owners) standing by the window and muttering. We walked over and looked outside to see a VERY ANGRY LION pouncing about.
“WHY is there a lion outside?”
The older woman explained, “oh, we’ve always had this lion on the property. He’s very angry and gets mad about everything. We have to be very careful when we go outside or he will attack us.”
Furious that they didn’t tell us when we were registering that OH BY THE WAY, WE HAVE AN ANGRY LION, I sputtered and grew red-faced. Then, they opened the window and leaned out to TALK to the lion. It apparently was meant as a calming gesture but the lion jumped through the window and started chasing us all around, growling and snapping his teeth.
Screaming, of course, we all ran around in a circle. Then the couple ran to the window and produced two small silver toys, clinked them together, and threw them out the window. The lion whirled around and ran to the window and jumped out, attacking the toys with vengeance.
They slammed the windows and then apologized profusely about the lion having gotten into our room.
Everyone left our room to go into the main room of the Inn and discuss the lion problem. Everyone except me, Drew, and a nanny type lady who worked at the Inn. We were sitting in the floor near the window when I felt something sting HORRIBLY between my toenails!! I looked down and saw three scorpions, dead (apparently biting me killed them), right by my feet.
I screamed so loudly and ran to the other side of the room as fast as I could. The nanny was trying to understand what I was saying but I was screaming so loud and talking so fast that it was hard. Finally, she heard me say “GET DREW OFF THE FLOOR! SCORPIONS!”
She grabbed him and ran over to be with me. On the safe side of the room.
The problem must have resolved itself because the next thing I remember is Daniel and I trying to get our luggage and Drew from our room to the elevator (we had our own personal elevator in our room) but someone was shooting at us through the window. We had to army crawl to the elevator and jump and hop to avoid the bullets. We finally got all of our luggage and Drew onto the elevator to head downstairs, and then on to our car.
We made it to the car safely, with no one shooting at us outside and with no lion attacks.
We gathered into a huge auditorium (if you’ve been to the FMA at BJU, it was EXACTLY like that) that seated about 7,000 people. But the only people attending were folks that graduated with me in 2003. So, not nearly enough to fill up one section in the auditorium. And oddly, I didn’t recognize ANY faces around me.
The conference/ceremony began with one particular professor speaking. I don’t remember what he was speaking about but suddenly he started blinking and speaking much slower. His voiced cracked and then he stopped his speech and leaned towards the mike.
“You kids better not make FUN OF ME. I know my words don’t make sense and my face is crumbling away but if you tease me then I will CHASE YOU.” He started moaning and making dying noises into the mike and wiping imaginary drool away.
He jumped up and started chasing a few people around and then mass panic set in and everyone started running for the exits. Finally, one brave man hit the professor as hard as he could – right in the face.
And the professor just fell to the ground, giggling. “My face! It hurts! But it’s still there. It’s all in my mind!!”
After that, we all sat back down for the next speech.
A very squishy woman, with a redneck drawl, and short bright red hair, stood up to give a speech. But she threw her speech down and pulled out a shotgun instead.
“I want to confess that I had to go to prison for many long years because of killing people. I just wanted to tell my story.”
No one budged while she told her story and then as she ended, she raised the gun up and started shooting people in the audience. Everyone fell into the floor and started hiding behind the seats.
Daniel, Drew and I were hiding behind a row of seats and panicking about being killed again. All of the sudden, Daniel pulled out a thick envelope and acted like he was going to stand up.
I whispered, loudly, “ARE YOU CRAZY? SHE’S GOING TO KILL YOU IF YOU STAND UP!”
“No, she won’t. But I have to go up there.”
“NO YOU DO NOT. SIT DOWN.”
“No, I need to read these. This envelope holds letters from John, me, and has my confession of when I was in prison for murder too. And I have to read them to everyone.”
“Oh. Alright. YOUR NAME IS JOHN?”
And with that, my alarm went off and I woke up thinking WHO DID I MARRY?!?!
~
Is that not the FREAKIEST dream ever? I love that I didn’t mind that my husband had murdered anyone, I just couldn’t believe that Daniel wasn’t his real name.
